Discussion Random Discussion

[bergholt]

It appears that highlighted demographic is starting to turn away from Labor.

Definitely. Personally I think Labor should turn back to them and away from inner city progressives, leave them to the Greens. But most Labor staffers are inner city progressives so that seems unlikely.

 

[MUFKilda]

You nailed it, Yawkey way. Labor lost the unloseable here. Boris is the lesser of two evils. Kilary was unelectable from the moment she revealed her true character and contempt for the average citizens. The word Deplorables" has never had greater power. Changed the USA and by extension, the world.

Absolutely not. I'm a Green Party voter who was very impressed by the Labour manifesto, which represented the first real break with neoliberalism for thirty years. Ending student tuition fees, free social care for the elderly in care, free nursery places for all two and three year olds, abolition of Universal Credit, a green industrial revolution, nationalising our railways and power suppliers etc etc - it was a superb document. However, Corbyn lost a lot of support due to his being disliked personally by many Labour voters and because of lack of clarity on Brexit.

With a new leader and once Brexit is behind us, those progressive policies should be winners with Labour voters. The hard right pro-Brexit, pro privatisation, pro trickle down economics of Johnson will prove harmful to the majority, but that's what the Conservative Party exists to do.

 

[MUFKilda]

Early evening here, but Christmas morning in Oz, so a very merry Christmas (as best as you can, given the heatwave and fires) to all of you, especially the Saints fans. Best wishes from Pom central

 

[gringo2011]

It appears that highlighted demographic is starting to turn away from Labor.

Yep, they did a switch. Blue collar are Libs, educated super income have gone to Labor or Greens.

 

[MUFKilda]

Yep, they did a switch. Blue collar are Libs, educated super income have gone to Labor or Greens.

What has the Australian Liberal Party ever done for blue collar workers in your country? It's the same question to blue collar Tories over here.

The answer, as I'm sure you know, is they've done nothing ever.

 

[bergholt]

What has the Australian Liberal Party ever done for blue collar workers in your country? It's the same question to blue collar Tories over here.

The answer, as I'm sure you know, is they've done nothing ever.

People vote much more on social issues than economic.

 

[Moral Decay]

What has the Australian Liberal Party ever done for blue collar workers in your country? It's the same question to blue collar Tories over here.

The answer, as I'm sure you know, is they've done nothing ever.

I live in a strictly conservative area that have voted Nationals in every bar one election (Liberals), they get 70% of the vote. State Labor governments have done every thing up here, Gov services, massive extensions for Hospital and Bush Nurse, huge building works for DWELP, support for logging and milling etc. Labor can't buy a vote. then the speed with which the Nationals desert people during disaster, they could be super heroes.

 

[PoppedCorn]

Wow
How the climate topic propels the angry mob to vent opinion and spew forth regurgitated musings from various studies both scientific and conspiratorial.
Ended up skipping 9 pages...too many erect phalluses getting hit with various measuring devices for my liking.

Im more pissed that my berry fruit needs to be packaged in ****ing plastic trays and 99% of fluids have to come in some form of plastic.
Someone hasnt figured out a way around this yet??

Seriously?

 

[Drake Huggins]

Absolutely not. I'm a Green Party voter who was very impressed by the Labour manifesto, which represented the first real break with neoliberalism for thirty years. Ending student tuition fees, free social care for the elderly in care, free nursery places for all two and three year olds, abolition of Universal Credit, a green industrial revolution, nationalising our railways and power suppliers etc etc - it was a superb document. However, Corbyn lost a lot of support due to his being disliked personally by many Labour voters and because of lack of clarity on Brexit.

With a new leader and once Brexit is behind us, those progressive policies should be winners with Labour voters. The hard right pro-Brexit, pro privatisation, pro trickle down economics of Johnson will prove harmful to the majority, but that's what the Conservative Party exists to do.

I guess the result speaks for itself. It may have been a superb document, but the majority obviously didn't believe Corbyn was capable of delivering on it.

A bit like Labor here. It's all the fault of ignorant voters and the deplorables for not recognising the genius in it, not incompetent, looney left idealogues who couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery. Britain just dodged a very large and deadly bullet.

 

[MUFKilda]

I guess the result speaks for itself. It may have been a superb document, but the majority obviously didn't believe Corbyn was capable of delivering on it.

A bit like Labor here. It's all the fault of ignorant voters and the deplorables for not recognising the genius in it, not incompetent, looney left idealogues who couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery. Britain just dodged a very large and deadly bullet.

But there was nothing 'loony' at all in the Labour manifesto. It was fully costed and socially just, whereas the Conservative manifesto was neither.

 

[Crusty Undies]

You nailed it, Yawkey way. Labor lost the unloseable here. Boris is the lesser of two evils. Kilary was unelectable from the moment she revealed her true character and contempt for the average citizens. The word Deplorables" has never had greater power. Changed the USA and by extension, the world.

Boris the lesser of two evils? Hahahahhaaha. The same guy who's made a higher proportion of british kids poverty stricken than in Ethiopia. The same guy who's doubled immigration despite claiming it's the cause of all Britain's problems. The same guy who's trying to gut one of the best healthcare systems in the world, and cut funding from Emergency Services. He's a Morrison replica, and absolute s**tstain on the country. Corbyn on the other hand, dared to stand up to the media and had the biggest smear campaign in human history ran against him by the pro torie media. Give it a rest mate, facts > feelings.

 

[Crusty Undies]

But there was nothing 'loony' at all in the Labour manifesto. It was fully costed and socially just, whereas the Conservative manifesto was neither.

Nah that couldn't possibly be right mate, that's far to reasonable for the nutcase RWNJs. Fully costed? Pfft, but don't you know Corbyn is a commie cos he rides a red bike?

 

[bergholt]

I guess the result speaks for itself. It may have been a superb document, but the majority obviously didn't believe Corbyn was capable of delivering on it.

The majority didn’t know what was in it. They vote on identity and broad social trends like gay marriage or affirmative action, not on economics or policy. In the case of the UK election also on Brexit - “get Brexit done” was always going to win as a position. It doesn’t do to overcomplicate our understanding of these things.

 

[Moral Decay]

But there was nothing 'loony' at all in the Labour manifesto. It was fully costed and socially just, whereas the Conservative manifesto was neither.

I only know one expat and she's absolutely barking, but the idea was brought up that prior to the Brexit vote social violence was not unexpected, the Brexit vote acted as a circuit breaker, and I wondered about your take on things. I don't expect Brexit to be a success, rather that there will be less opportunity to pass the buck.

 

[Pakenhamsaint]

What has the Australian Liberal Party ever done for blue collar workers in your country? It's the same question to blue collar Tories over here.

The answer, as I'm sure you know, is they've done nothing ever.

The feeling I have is that those blue collar workers feel they're being left behind by the progressive and more global side of things.

 

[gringo2011]

Definitely. Personally I think Labor should turn back to them and away from inner city progressives, leave them to the Greens. But most Labor staffers are inner city progressives so that seems unlikely.

The problem with that is that there aren't many blue collar people left. The appeal fo them is usually holding on to industry, stopping immigration so that it protects jobs. Tarrifs to keep industry alive etc. I can't see the people who are in the party all of a sudden moving their focus. They'd have to start again with a whole new set of politicians. Conservatives used to be about conserving family and religious values, safe steady economic management and an almost old fashioned idea about how things should run. They moved in to radical economics in the 1980s and have this duality where they sell the message of being the heroes of the poor and working classes while making them poor and less working as they send jobs off shore and bring in mass immigration to create a constant growth cycle.

 

[Saintos The ITK]

The problem with that is that there aren't many blue collar people left. The appeal fo them is usually holding on to industry, stopping immigration so that it protects jobs. Tarrifs to keep industry alive etc. I can't see the people who are in the party all of a sudden moving their focus. They'd have to start again with a whole new set of politicians. Conservatives used to be about conserving family and religious values, safe steady economic management and an almost old fashioned idea about how things should run. They moved in to radical economics in the 1980s and have this duality where they sell the message of being the heroes of the poor and working classes while making them poor and less working as they send jobs off shore and bring in mass immigration to create a constant growth cycle.

Spot on
Once the first “worker” bought the first investment property they pretty much broke unionism bn. I’ve been heavily involved in a lot of industrial action and an ex labor supporter. I’ll always support the unions but they and labor sold us out years ago when they invoked union rationisation and pretty much divvyied is up for their own political power.
the solicitors that run the unions only care about their own career paths.

 

[sammm]

Absolutely not. I'm a Green Party voter who was very impressed by the Labour manifesto, which represented the first real break with neoliberalism for thirty years. Ending student tuition fees, free social care for the elderly in care, free nursery places for all two and three year olds, abolition of Universal Credit, a green industrial revolution, nationalising our railways and power suppliers etc etc - it was a superb document. However, Corbyn lost a lot of support due to his being disliked personally by many Labour voters and because of lack of clarity on Brexit.

With a new leader and once Brexit is behind us, those progressive policies should be winners with Labour voters. The hard right pro-Brexit, pro privatisation, pro trickle down economics of Johnson will prove harmful to the majority, but that's what the Conservative Party exists to do.

Corbyn certainly lost the plot with his blatant anti-Semitism .

 

[Moral Decay]

The problem with that is that there aren't many blue collar people left. The appeal fo them is usually holding on to industry, stopping immigration so that it protects jobs. Tarrifs to keep industry alive etc. I can't see the people who are in the party all of a sudden moving their focus. They'd have to start again with a whole new set of politicians. Conservatives used to be about conserving family and religious values, safe steady economic management and an almost old fashioned idea about how things should run. They moved in to radical economics in the 1980s and have this duality where they sell the message of being the heroes of the poor and working classes while making them poor and less working as they send jobs off shore and bring in mass immigration to create a constant growth cycle.

The migrant thing is interesting, speak to most blue collar worker and immigration is a big deal but …...
When students come over they pay so much in uni fees they subsidise the education of Aus citizens, at the same time they have work restrictions in the hours they can fill providing a cheap and malleable labour pool.

When they graduate the residency and citizenship requirements maintain a conservative and malleable workforce, but the big deal is the amount of tax they pay. The vast majority go into higher paying white collar jobs, with the resultant higher taxation and given the high costs of providing service to the populace is in the childhood and aging years which they aren't contributing to they aren't a drain on the tax system either, then immigrants engage in property and the consumer economy driving growth.

On the basic level they make up for the negative population growth, so the benefits of immigrants, they cut taxation, provide more tax dollars, provide the economic growth that provide jobs for blue collar workers, and they don't want the blue collar jobs. Without immigrants Cashed Up Bogans go back to being Bogans.

 

[Kildonan]

But there was nothing 'loony' at all in the Labour manifesto. It was fully costed and socially just, whereas the Conservative manifesto was neither.

Fear is the greatest motivator at election time. The right were quicker to adopt a stance where fear influenced the voters their way. USA, GB and Australia are all heavily influenced by right wing media who identify and amplify that fear message.

Think of the franking credit debacle here last election. A fear campaign that Labor were going to tax retirees was hugely successful despite assurances from Labor that most retirees would actually be better off under them. The right get back in and royally screw the retirees via several pathways, and they're told "but at least we didn't impose a retiree tax". The franking credits issue does not affect the vast majority of Australians, but for those wealthy people that are affected by it, it’s quite a passionate issue and it is these wealthy people who have the greatest power to voice their concerns about it. Labor’s policy would derive $8 billion a year mainly from the wealthiest once fully implemented.

Franking credit refunds were introduced to deal with a differential in taxation rates between company tax and superannuation tax rates. It was originally created to service a small number of situations. Refunds have got very big and certainly much bigger than was anticipated when the policy of refund-ability was first introduced. This has become a loophole for the super wealthy to pay less tax. This is why the the funds have grown so much. The wealthy are having their income supplemented by the poor. To be fair, there are a large number of people of limited wealth who also try to capitalise on this loophole, but it doesn't offer much unless you have huge earnings through investments.

It is this level of complexity that causes so many to just accept what others are telling them, or act conservatively and vote conservatively just in case.

Scaring works.

But is this how we want our society to develop. To have the party that frightens us the most of what the other party will do to us if we vote them in.

We are using the wrong parts of our brain we we make these decisions. We need to make more rational decisions, and we need to elect leaders who will look further forward than the next election.

 

[Drake Huggins]

I only know one expat and she's absolutely barking, but the idea was brought up that prior to the Brexit vote social violence was not unexpected, the Brexit vote acted as a circuit breaker, and I wondered about your take on things. I don't expect Brexit to be a success, rather that there will be less opportunity to pass the buck.

But there was nothing 'loony' at all in the Labour manifesto. It was fully costed and socially just, whereas the Conservative manifesto was neither.

You are kidding, aren't you? This is the sort of deluded hubris that keeps the left in opposition. When I wrote Britain dodged a very big bullet, I didn't mean anything to do with Brexit.

I meant the voters refused to hand the reigns to the clearly unelectable Corbyn and his circus. Fully costed, eh? Brilliant. Well done. They all say that, don't they? Then they spend like drunken sailors once in government and blame their predecessors as the cause for any difficties. Sound familiar?

Of course, in opposition. you never have to prove anything, do you? No fear of them having to carry out their promises, was there? Of course not. Are you seriously suggesting Labour would've kept its promises? No government in history has, or enlighten the rest of us deplorables as to which government Labour/Labor or otherwise anywhere in the world has ever kept its promises, post election?

In the end, the electorate spoke. They rejected Corbyn and his amazing manifesto. They showed they didn't believe he could carry it out. Same for unelecta-Bill here and the condescending Hilary Clinton in the US.

Boris' election promises not costed? What are you reading, or not reading? Religion, football and politics turn the minds of otherwise normal men, to mush.

In the end, the "widely read" tend only to refer to those things that confirm their confirmation bias. Guilty of it myself, no matter how much I try to convince myself otherwise.

The cognitive dissonance labour/Labor voters are feeling can only be reduced with delusion, as the facts don't fit the internal schemas they use to build the model of their world.

Hence it's not Labour's lack of appeal, it's typically "Blue Sky" promises and demonstrated record of reckless spending, and infighting that doomed them to another decade in the wilderness.

Like here in Oz, it's the rest of us who are to blame. We are stupid, greedy, self interested and ill informed. Deplorables. We thank you for continuing to point this out to us. We are very grateful for the advice.

Enjoy another decade of conservative government and another 5 of Trump. I don't know how you'll cope, but I'm sure you'll make something up.

Meanwhile the rest of us will get on with our lives, safe in the knowledge that the likes of Corbyn, Shorten, Clinton et al, get nowhere near the steering wheel.

Have a Merry Christmas. The rest of us deplorables are.

 

[bergholt]

The migrant thing is interesting, speak to most blue collar worker and immigration is a big deal but …...
When students come over they pay so much in uni fees they subsidise the education of Aus citizens, at the same time they have work restrictions in the hours they can fill providing a cheap and malleable labour pool.

When they graduate the residency and citizenship requirements maintain a conservative and malleable workforce, but the big deal is the amount of tax they pay. The vast majority go into higher paying white collar jobs, with the resultant higher taxation and given the high costs of providing service to the populace is in the childhood and aging years which they aren't contributing to they aren't a drain on the tax system either, then immigrants engage in property and the consumer economy driving growth.

On the basic level they make up for the negative population growth, so the benefits of immigrants, they cut taxation, provide more tax dollars, provide the economic growth that provide jobs for blue collar workers, and they don't want the blue collar jobs. Without immigrants Cashed Up Bogans go back to being Bogans.

Again, people don't vote on logical economic facts. They vote on broad social trends.

People basically don't want Australian culture to change too much, which means people don't care about immigrants from the UK, Europe, NZ, etc. But bringing in a lot of immigrants from China, South-East Asia, India, the Middle East, Africa feels like it changes the country too much too quickly. People generally don't like seeing lots of non-white faces and hearing lots of thick accents in their local area.

I'm not saying they're necessarily right or wrong, just that's the way it is.

But it's not as if they've got a choice anyway. Both major parties go for relatively high levels of immigration.

 

[bergholt]

I meant the voters refused to hand the reigns to the clearly unelectable Corbyn and his circus. Fully costed, eh? Brilliant. Well done. They all say that, don't they? Then they spend like drunken sailors once in government and blame their predecessors as the cause for any difficties. Sound familiar?

Of course, in opposition. you never have to prove anything, do you? No fear of them having to carry out their promises, was there? Of course not. Are you seriously suggesting Labour would've kept its promises? No government in history has, or enlighten the rest of us deplorables as to which government Labour/Labor or otherwise anywhere in the world has ever kept its promises, post election?

Sure. As you say, both sides of politics are the same on this.

But anyway, government's supposed to spend money, that's why it exists. We give them money in taxes, they provide services we can't effectively provide individually.

Even more so right now. Economies of the world are generally ****ed, there's no growth (which is what our system is built on) because people are saving, businesses can't work out how to improve their top-line revenue, asset prices are ever-increasing, and income inequality is inching upwards. "Secular stagnation" the economists call it. And yet governments in much of the world have decided the answer to low growth is budget surpluses or austerity - which just exacerbate the problem.

Government should be investing in productive capacity so that we might be able to have a decent economy in future. Whether that's building infrastructure or giving funding to new firms or helping people take productive risks or working to reduce income inequality.

(Income inequality matters because, as we're seeing at the moment, rich people save their money, non-rich people spend - which keeps the economy going round. Increasing inequality just leads to increasing asset prices but they don't really cause growth or jobs.)

Someone has to work out a way to sell that rather than letting the prevailing narrative be the dumb "return to surplus" thing.

 

[gringo2011]

Corbyn certainly lost the plot with his blatant anti-Semitism .

I have Israeli Jewish friends who said he's more anti zionist than anti semitic. I'm not actually that into politics that I can say I know what he has said though. They were outraged by Trump's speech though so it might just depend on which side of the political fence you sit on.

Trump accused of anti-Semitism after saying Jewish Americans will vote for him so they can avoid a wealth tax

"You're brutal killers," President Donald Trump told those in real estate. "Not nice people at all, but you have to vote for me you have no choice."

www.businessinsider.com.au

 

[gringo2011]

The migrant thing is interesting, speak to most blue collar worker and immigration is a big deal but …...
When students come over they pay so much in uni fees they subsidise the education of Aus citizens, at the same time they have work restrictions in the hours they can fill providing a cheap and malleable labour pool.

When they graduate the residency and citizenship requirements maintain a conservative and malleable workforce, but the big deal is the amount of tax they pay. The vast majority go into higher paying white collar jobs, with the resultant higher taxation and given the high costs of providing service to the populace is in the childhood and aging years which they aren't contributing to they aren't a drain on the tax system either, then immigrants engage in property and the consumer economy driving growth.

On the basic level they make up for the negative population growth, so the benefits of immigrants, they cut taxation, provide more tax dollars, provide the economic growth that provide jobs for blue collar workers, and they don't want the blue collar jobs. Without immigrants Cashed Up Bogans go back to being Bogans.

Are there hidden costs to high immigration?

Immigration has lifted our GDP but if state governments don't get planning policy right, the federal government should think about curtailing immigration

www.smh.com.au

The uni one is another double edged sword. We sell spots which limits local access and universities would rather sell a spot to the highest bidder. Also have lots of residency scams tied into degrees these days. Commoditiing education is rarely ever a long term good thing with obscure or less financially beneficial courses getting removed.

The idea that growth needs to be constant is a real issue for the whole world. It keeps the consumption cycle going and even if you don't believe in climate change, it's polluting, wasteful and unsustainable. We will literally start to drown in rubbish and need more and more land cut from the natural world and we will need to keep digging more and more holes for raw materials.

As uni degrees get more common, kids are needing a degree just to get a job in a cafe. 457 visas keep people here out of skilled jobs. It was designed that it would mean that where there was a lack of a particular worker like engineers in the mining boom, that companies could easily nd cheaply access those workers. It's become a scam that keeps people from hiring permanent local staff even in low skilled wok.